Writer and producer Akiva Goldsmith opened up to The Hollywood Reporter in an interview about the upcoming seasons of his two Star Trek shows – and fans are going to be pretty excited about one particular aspect that he’s incorporating into his new series Strange New Worlds.
“It's unlike the other shows in that it's really episodic. If you think back to The Original Series, it was a tonally more liberal — I don't mean in terms of politics, but it could sort of be more fluid,” Goldsmith told The Hollywood Reporter. “Like sometimes Robert Bloch would write a horror episode. Or Harlan Ellison would have 'City on the Edge of Forever,' which is hard sci-fi. Then there would be comedic episodes, like 'Shore Leave' or 'The Trouble With Tribbles.'"
Goldsmith says that this openness to exploring other styles of genres has influenced what we can expect from Strange New World. "So [co-showrunner] Henry Alonso Myers and myself are trying to serve that. We've all become very enamored, myself included, with serialized storytelling. And I'm talking to you from behind the stage where we're shooting Picard, which is deeply serialized." Goldsmith concludes "But Strange New Worlds is very much adventure-of-the-week but with serialized character arcs.”
Goldsmith previously worked on projects like Fringe and A Beautiful Mind. Fringe in particular dealt with the balance of serialized storytelling while having “monster-of-the-week” type episodes. Strange New Worlds is the writer’s first television pilot and the fact that the series will be taking a page from The Original Series and using an adventure-of-the-week type style is something that will probably be a welcome and different change to the reinvigorated Star Trek world. Star Trek: Picard is very much a serialized show, but Strange New Worlds will be representing something lighter that longtime fans have definitely been waiting to see.
In the interview, Goldsmith also shed light on the differences between the two shows aside from storytelling, saying everyone involved “wants Strange New Worlds to be a different show." Goldsmith states “It's not Discovery. There are a few more reach-backs (to The Original Series) and the uniforms have been adjusted slightly, the sets are slightly different,” said Goldsmith. “Remember the Enterprise existed as a little piece of [the show Discovery], but now it's its own object. When you close your eyes and think of the key sets and situations that you think of The Original Series, that's what we're looking to do.”
While Star Trek: Strange New Worlds doesn't have a release date yet, the series will debut on the Paramount+ streaming service in the near future.